College of Education

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    Literacy Based Behavioral Interventions for Autistic and Neurotypical Children
    (2024) Pepkin Dataram, Sara Anne; Kang, Veronica; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The neurodiversity model of disability is a relatively new approach to teaching and working with autistic individuals. As a result, many interventions align with earlier models of disability, such as the medical and social models, and aim to assimilate autistic individuals among their neurotypical peers rather than celebrate their differences as one of life’s natural diversities. This study investigates how educators can create Literacy Based Behavioral Interventions (LBBIs) that align with the neurodiversity paradigm and foster equitable friendships between autistic and neurotypical children. I conducted focus groups with 34 autistic middle school and high school students and eight educators to determine how to feasibly meet autistic students’ social needs. Themes found across these focus groups included autism education for teachers and neurotypical peers, barriers to communication, and the impact of social stigma against autistic individuals. These findings indicate a need for LBBIs and overall classroom environments that amplify autistic perspectives and are not rooted in neurotypical standards.
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    Factors Affecting the Generalization of "wh-" Question Answering by Children with Autism
    (2007-04-25) Barthold, Christine Hoffner; Egel, Andrew L; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this study was to examine whether Relational Frame Theory (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2001b) could be applied to increase generalization of "wh-" question answering (e.g., what, why, how) by children with autism. Students (N=6) from two self-contained classrooms for children with autism were taught to answer "wh-" questions in the presence of magazine pictures, pictures from storybooks, and actions in the natural context depicting a scenario related to the question asked. Generalization to novel questions was then assessed. If students were not able to answer generalized "wh-" questions to criterion, a matching-to-sample procedure with exclusion was used to increase associations between stimuli. A multiple probe design across subjects was used for this study. A baseline of "wh-" question answering, matching to sample, and receptive identification of answers to questions were conducted prior to training. In addition, students were observed in the classroom environment prior to training. A descriptive analysis of their verbal behavior, in which antecedents, student responses, and consequences were recorded, was conducted to determine the students' verbal behavior ability in the absence of a particular training program. Two students, one in each school, were able to generalize to novel "wh-" questions after training. Both of these students were able to spontaneously tact items and had a higher number of tacts in relation to mands in the descriptive analysis. Individuals who did not generalize did not acquire relations using a matching to sample with exclusion procedure. They also emitted either an equal number of tacts and mands during the descriptive analysis or more mands than tacts. Implications for practice include the consideration of waiting to include "wh-" question answering until students are able to emit a high number of spontaneous tacts and possibly early intraverbal behavior such as greetings, the elimination of visual stimuli when teaching "wh-" questions, and the expansion of matching-to-sample goals in behavioral curricula. Suggestions for future research include the continued research into the development of verbal behavior in children with autism, refinement of matching techniques to teach relations, and expansion of the descriptive analysis of verbal behavior.
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    The Social Engagement System: Functional Differences in Individuals with Autism
    (2004-05-03) Denver, John William; Porges, Stephen W; Human Development
    The Polyvagal Theory links the evolution of the autonomic nervous system to affective experience, emotional expression, facial gestures, vocalization and social engagement behavior. Therefore, the theory provides a plausible explanation for the bio-behavioral indices of several psychiatric disorders. The vagus as a "system" provides a rich organizing principle to investigate several of the behavioral, psychological, and physiological features associated with compromised social behavior in several psychiatric disorders. The Polyvagal Theory describes this integrated system as the Social Engagement System. Observations of the behaviors and physiological responses of autistic individuals suggest that they have great difficulties in recruiting the neural circuit that regulates the social engagement system. This model predicts that a deficit in the system would produce atypical social behaviors such as social withdrawal; improper communication (i.e., poor intonation and prosody); difficulty listening (inability to extract human voice from background noise); poor eye contact; inappropriate facial expressivity (i.e., flat affect); and atypical visceral functioning (i.e., low cardiac vagal tone). These indices are directly related to the atypical behaviors associated with autism, and several other psychiatric disorders. In the current study, measures related to the functioning of these components were obtained to test the hypothesis that autistic individuals have a compromised social engagement system. Forty subjects participated in the study (20 autistic, 31 males, ages 9-24). Data were collected to assess autonomic functioning (i.e., cardiac vagal tone), the ability to extract human voice from a compromised environment, an estimate of right ear advantage, and looking behavior (i.e., eye contact). Analyses showed that autistic individuals scored poorer on all measures assessing social engagement system functioning. Compared to controls, the autistic group had lower mean cardiac vagal tone and shorter heart periods, performed poorer on extracting human voice from a compromised environment, on a dichotic listening task, and on a measure of right ear advantage. They also spent significantly less time fixating on the eyes and more time fixating off of the face when viewing a movie of a person telling them a story. Results support the hypothesized relation between a compromised social engagement system and the atypical features associated with autism.